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Sunday, October 20, 2013

Sorry to burst Arturia's bubble nearly a week early, but we seem to have official confirmation that the Microbrute, which was first teased earlier this week on Arturia's site, is their new hardware synthesizer. The Microbrute is a 25 mini-key monosynth with a rumored retail price of $299. Other rumors suggest that the Microbrute is virtual analog, but these rumors are very unlikely, considering that the image above clearly states "analog" and features a mini patch bay and no presets, which would be unusual for a digital synth. The Microbrute includes the Minibrute's waveshaping oscillator, multimode filter, a single LFO and envelope, a sequencer, and the aforementioned mini patch bay. which is currently unreadable due to the size of the above picture. The official Arturia site says "modern connectivity" so there's even a chance this synth could be USB powered, which could be a nice feature for those working in a small space.

(Thanks to user Slujj for the video!)

So who is the Microbrute for? There is probably a very small constituency of synthesists and bedroom producers who can't afford the already cheap Minibrute, and it appears this is an attempt to cater to them, and perhaps do battle with the DSI Mopho module, Korg Volca series, and Waldorf Rocket. This will probably be a skip for Minibrute owners.

I think many people will be disappointed that this is not a a polysynth, seeing as how the low price point could be an indicator of how reasonably priced a 4 or 5 voice synth could be. Months ago, Arturia was looking for a hardware engineer, which could indicate this elusive polysynth is in the pipeline but still months away, or years worst case scenario. The Microbrute is, after all, just a repackaged Minibrute, so the engineer's expertise really wouldn't be needed for this project. So I guess that's my official prediction on the matter-- I think we will see the Arturia Multibrute, or whatever name it may be called-- sometime in 2014 due to the existence of this synth and the Volca keys.